T-Mobile's G1 hits the US

T-Mobile's G1, the first handset using Google's Android platform, has gone on sale in the US.

Martyn Williams and James Niccolai
October 22, 2008

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T-Mobile's G1, the first handset using Google's Android platform, has gone on sale in the US.

The G1 will go on sale in the UK next Thursday, and will be available on a contract with prices starting from £40 per month.

The device, which is manufactured by HTC, was made available at a T-Mobile store in San Francisco before anywhere else in the US, attracted a queue of about 150 people, headed by student Christopher Laddish.

"I was sold on it without even having to pick it up," said Laddish, who was wearing a t-shirt given to him by T-Mobile that read 'I was the first to get it'.

It has a 3.2in touchscreen display that slides away from the main body of the phone to expose a QWERTY keyboard. That puts it into competition with other smartphones like RIM's Blackberry and Apple's popular iPhone.

"I've been reading a lot about the phone for the last couple of weeks and I'm not really a big fan of the iPhone touch screen," said Chijioke Amah, who was also queuing up to buy the G1. "That's probably what made me not that interested in the iPhone. When I heard T-Mobile was going to have the Google phone with a keyboard, that's what got my attention."

Amah, who confessed to being a Mac user, said he isn't sold on the idea of typing on a touchscreen and so decided the G1 would be a better choice than the iPhone as he switches from his current Blackberry.